When Brew England opened its doors in January 2025, our goal was to provide a haven for craft beer lovers where they could find unique brews you couldn’t find at the local supermarkets and corner stores.

It has been a learning process as a first time business owner, but one year later we’ve learned what sells and what doesn’t with the biggest takeaways being:

• IPAs are Still King. No matter how much complaining you see online about how much beer drinkers are supposedly over your dank hazy IPAs, they were by far the best sellers.
• There is a healthy demand for International Beer, especially the Belgian and German Classics.
• Beer sold in traditional larger format bottles (330/500/750ml) do very well, even as the focus has been shifting towards 16oz cans (even Saison Dupont!).
• NA Beer Sales were healthy, but the focus was on local brands.

Some caveats with the data. Brew England is primarily serving the craft beer community. We carry very few Macros (we believe there’s a time and place for Miller, Labatt & PBR which we carry though) and ~50% of the beer we offer is brewed right in Maine with the other ~25% being brewed elsewhere in New England and remaining ~25% being national or international brands. In part because it is actually fairly limited to what beer we can buy wholesale in Maine from distributors from out of state, but also because we love to support local, especially the smaller Maine brewers hustling and self distributing.

Therefore, this data should be taken into context of a small bottle shop in a small city in Southern Maine and shouldn’t necessarily be used to diagnose or predict national trends in beer consumption.

Top Selling Beer Styles in 2025

No surprise, but IPAs were by far the winner in popularity. Also, not surprising, Lagers and Pilsners came in second. International was heavily dominated by Belgian, Japanese and German beer, but represented over a dozen nations including some nice finds from Mexico (La Bru/Monstruo De Agua), China (Young Master), Vietnam (Heart of Darkness) and even Australia (Nomad).

Malt forward styles were overall popular and more niche styles like Sours or Saisons/Farmhouse Ales saw healthy sales.

Top International Beer By Country

Probably no surprise that Belgium and Germany dominate the list. Maybe more surprising is Japan being so high up there, but with great brands like Kiuchi and Orion customers really gravitated towards the light but flavorful rice lagers. Unfortunately, I learned just how few English imports are available in Maine despite many customers asking for favorites such as Boddingtons. Same goes for Canada, despite being literally next door, the only craft beer brands available are the legendary Unibrou, Moosehead Lager and Partake NA Beer.

Top IPAs of 2025

Being a shop in Maine, it comes as no surprise that Maine Beer Co and Bissell Brothers dominate the list. More impressive is Black Pug Brewing, a nanobrewery out of Brunswick, Maine came in third. It did help that they were sold in 500ml single bottles at a great price and offer fun and interesting flavors.

Russian River is hard to come by in Maine, but every time I got it into the shop, we would completely sell out within 48 hours.

Tops Pilsners & Lagers of 2025

Lawson’s took the top spot with their Scrag Mountain, but maybe the most surprising on this list is Utica Club coming in second. At the end of the day, it is a solid non-pretentious light beer at a great price point.

Schilling out of New Hampshire has recently seen a lot of national attention in recent years and might be the top brewer of high quality pilsner in the entire nation right now. If you need more reason to visit, their brewery is located in an old water mill building along the Ammonoosuc River next to a freaking covered bridge in the scenic White Mountains. Never mind the beer, there’s few breweries that can compete with Schilling in terms of ambiance. Picture postcard perfect.

Tops Reds & Brown Ales of 2025

For malt forward styles, we have a lot of Maine classics like Geaghan’s Higgins Irish Red, Boothbay Ken Brown Ale and the venerable Belfast Bay Lobster Ale. If you haven’t tried these beers, you need to book a trip to Maine stat. These are the beers that fuel the lobstering and timber industries.

Nonesuch River Brewing is located just down the street in Scarborough, Maine and always offers great beer and food, despite being a small operation.

Top Stout & Porter of 2025

When it comes to darker styles, we have a good variety of Maine classics like the Mean Old Tom, New England favorites like the Lawson’s Nitro Stout and National favorites like Deschutes.

SOME Brewing is based in York, Maine and the Peanut Butter Whoopie Pie Stout is every bit as decadent as the name suggests, the perfect dessert beer where the beer itself is the dessert.

Similarly, Blaze Brewing which got its start in Biddeford where Brew England is located, offers their luscious and creamy Toasted Porter with Marshmallow.

Top Belgians of 2025

I learned that the general public has not heard the gospel about the classic Belgian style saison/farmhouse ale and why it is such an amazing style of beer. Dominating the charts are Maine stalwarts Oxbow which probably doesn’t need any introduction, but also Sasanoa Brewing, a small operation that grows most of its ingredients on their island farm North of Portland and is one of the few breweries in the nation that meet the tough Certified Organic criteria.

Of course we also have classics like St Bernardus and Saison Dupont.

Top International Beer of 2025

I learned that customers really really love the humbling rice lagers as demonstrated by top performances by Hitachino Nest and Orion.

I also learned, my customers share a love for Unibroue’s La Fin Du Monde and were happy to always offer space on my shelf for this legendary brew.

Closing out the top 5 are German classics including Ayinger’s Oktoberfest and maybe more surprising Schlenkerla’s Rauchbier Urbock, keeping the ancient smoked beer tradition alive.

Top Budget Beer of 2025

Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising, but one of the most popular combos I noticed were customers buying a high octane IPA along with a cheap 6 pack of light beer. Personally, I can only drink one IPA at a time.

Utica Club took the top spot, followed by the New England regional cheap-beer of choice Narragansett.

Garage Beer sold well with a lot of curious customers and a few die-hard fans.

As someone who grew up in Western NY, I was pleasantly surprised by the popularity of Labatt Blue. Overall, it is a solid non-pretentious light beer. Don’t take my word for it, go watch Tree House Brewing’s glowing review.

Top Non-Alcoholic Beer of 2025

Local Maine brands dominated the NA list. We do sell Athletic, Brooklyn and 2 Roads, but I guess you can’t beat the brand awareness of the local breweries.

Especially Kit NA, which in my opinion is actually slightly better than Athletic. Meanwhile, Woodland Farms out of Kittery Maine offers many flavorful styles other NA breweries won’t touch. The dark house here is Baxter Brewing out of Lewiston, Maine which has developed a delicious true-to-beer NA brews such as their Blueberry ale (and pumpkin ale not listed).

Top Craft Ciders of 2025

Just wanted to touch upon ciders for the last chart. Whaleback Farm is a Maine Cidery that’s really elevating cider to the level of wine.

Rounding out the top 5 you have Vermont’s Citizen Cider & Shacksbury.

Conclusion

This has been a whirlwind experience my first year as a Craft Beer Store owner but with a full year under my belt, I am better prepared to serve my customers throughout 2026.